Sunday morning breakfast should always involve breakfast sandwiches. Here’s how to put a new twist on an old favorite.
Strips of bacon can be cooked one of two ways: if you have the time/patience/foresight, on a tray and in the oven is the best way to do it. The alternative is in a pan on the stovetop, and I don’t think I need to tell anyone that there’s no way around one side curling up and it’s impossible to get a good even cook on a given strip. This is why I like to slice it for a nice easy approach: no curling and no oven involved.
Standard chopping/slicing: lots of people love watching professionals do this shit. I don’t know. It is arguably the most basic skill a professional cook must have, and with how easy it is for anyone to do, it’s no wonder. Should I do an instructional video on how to chop like a pro?
Add your onions and saute for a bit. With the bacon fat, no additional salt should really be necessary here. Onions will be wonderful and flavorful at all the stages of their cooking process, so the amount of time you choose to cook the onions is up to you, but once peppers are cooked too much, they lose their texture and color, and turn into mushy pieces of shit, so they should be added to the pan close to the end of sauteing. It should look a little something like this…
But seriously….
First of all, the non-stick pan thing: I’m sure it’s possible to cook eggs that don’t stick in a non non-stick pan. It’s how Escoffier said we should do it (and his word really is doctrine), but it requires more butter than most people have in their home right now. Use a non-stick pan. Teflon is an incredible invention. The newer the better (yes, even with the best of care, they do lose their non-stick-yness over time), and if your equipment is a little old, take a page from Escoffier’s book and incorporate some additional cooking fat.
I’ll post about perfect scrambled eggs soon. Suffice it to say that eggs for breakfast sandwiches do not need to be perfect. When cooking for one person (presumably yourself), you can spend some time and attention to form your egg/veggie mass into the shape of whatever bread you are using. That way, when all is said and done, it will fit nicely and be less-likely to fall apart during eating. Keep in mind, when eating a sandwich, every bite means the contents are getting smushed together, so when assembling a sandwich of any kind, every effort should be made to keep things cohesive.
With that in mind, always put cheese as the top layer of a hot sandwich.
A step worth noting is that if you have the foresight (especially if your rolls are more than a day old), put your rolls in the oven for five minutes or so before cutting open to start the sandwich-making process. It will revive them and make the crust a bit more crispy and the inside more doughy.
Add desired condiments on the bottom.
It’s worth noting that almost all of my sandwich rolls are a product of the ACME Baking Co. in San Francisco. Their products are fantastic, and deserve their position as the most popular local mass-production baking operation in the Bay Area.
But back to the show: before being wrapped and put in the oven, this is what we’re lookin’ at…
And then the foil-wrapping.
5-10 minutes in the oven and then this…
Salt and Love 